Hope by Slow Heart Music

Slow Heart Music is a pseudonym for musician Ben Rath from Manchester, UK who has released music under his own name with labels including Sound in Silence, Unknown Tone Records, Eilean Rec., Cathedral Transmissions, Moonswing Netlabel, Triple Moon Records and Whitelabrecs. As Slow Heart Music, Ben focuses more closely on solo acoustic guitar instrumentals and has released albums exclusively through Whitelabrecs.

The majority of Ben's musical output finds its home in the rich and diverse territory of experimental ambient and drone music. Ben creates compositions using original recordings of guitar, keyboard, and piano, as well as samples, field recordings, and digital synthesizers. These sounds from various sources are then molded, transformed, and edited together to form instrumental arrangements which span a wide variety of styles, tones, and emotional registers, with inspiration drawn from pioneers in the genre such as Tim Hecker and Lawrence English, the early ambient works of artists such as Sean McCann and Colleen, and the emotional weight and resonance of Constellation Records greats such as Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Esmerine (among many others).

Under the Slow Heart Music moniker, Ben strips things back to explore the simple joy of the acoustic guitar. His playing, influenced by the likes of Eric Chenaux and Richard Dawson, as well as the gentle beauty of solo piano works from artists such as Nils Frahm and Olafur Arnalds, combines a sense of playful and spontaneous improvisation with arrangements and compositions that often express a gentle and tender emotion.

For his new album ‘Hope’, armed with the spirit of making use of whatever was to hand, Ben used two guitars; a £5 thrift shop purchase used to create the debut Slow Heart Music album ‘This Body Is Not Me’ and his girlfriend’s childhood guitar, a half-size classical acoustic. He had a vision for the sound he wanted to achieve, which builds on influences from artists that embrace sadness, melancholy and suffering whilst also creating something triumphantly beautiful. Ben said “I’ve struggled with my mental health ever since adolescence, and this was the music that often provided me with the most solace and comfort, that felt like it was communicating something real to my experience, that taught me that I was not as alone in my experience of deep sadness and anxiety as I often felt, and that a life of meaning could still be lived in the midst of it all.”

Ben is not a particularly emotional person and music is the one space in which he can express himself. ‘Hope’ is a collection of soft and minimal spaces, steeped in emotion, yet also serving as music that doesn’t try to soothe or distract from the suffering of the world, that sits in the mud of it all, staying determined that beauty and meaning are still possible. It is hoped that his music may also help some other lonely soul feel that little bit more connected and understood.

whitelabrecs.com

Whitelabrecs is a record label from Lincolnshire (UK) established in 2016, specialising in highly limited runs of vinyl-effect CDrs and digital-only editions. The label is managed by its founder Harry Towell, who records music as Glåsbird.

The label's discography focuses on contemporary Ambient music, including Drone, Modern Classical and Electro Acoustic.

whitelabrecs.com